Burhan Wani Archives - IUVMPRESS

Accusing Indian government of converting Kashmir valley into a “war zone” on the first death anniversary of Hizb commander Burhan Wani, Kashmir’s joint resistance leadership which comprises of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik on Saturday also said that those in power in New Delhi may in their arrogance consider themselves invincible but they need to remember that every pride has a fall and truth and justice finally prevail.

“The paranoia and panic that has gripped the state on the martyrdom anniversary of Burhan Wani is an acknowledgment that even his memories that live in heart of every Kashmiri are a threat to the mighty State despite its huge military control.” The JRL decried curfews and restrictions across Kashmir, blanket ban and gags on communication and networks, suspension of rail links, closing of highways, deployment of additional forces at every nook and corner of Kashmir, “arbitrary arrests and detentions, raids on homes and harassment of people,” said JRL in a statement.

“All measures to prevent people from paying homage to the martyr and his associates have exposed the oppressor. It also shows that however mighty and resourceful a State may be it can only suppress people struggling for freedom and justice physically, but can never crush their spirit and aspirations, of which it is actually afraid of,” the statement said.

“Today while we pay homage to Burhan and his associates we also remember the great sacrifices of 125 civilians, including children, men and women, murdered in cold blood by the government forces last year. Thousands were blinded and maimed by bullets and pellets, which were rained upon them. Tens of thousands were arrested, jailed, tortured and abused,” the statement added.

The leadership said that “people are being collectively punished by a mighty regime that has declared Kashmir a war zone where all human rights of its citizens cease to exist, for daring to demand their fundamental political right. So people are being taught a lesson in subservience through use of brute force.”

The leadership said that this approach of the State is flawed and “will never succeed in pushing people away from striving for the fulfillment of their political aspirations.”

“People’s commitment has stood the test of time. People could not get dissuaded from the movement during the past seventy years and the fourth generation of Kashmiri has got itself associated with it more forcefully and emotionally,” the statement said.

“The way to peace is not through might but through doing what is right and that is to stop repression and give people the right to decide their destiny through the democratic right to self determination,” it said.

Soz had said that he would have kept Burhan Wani alive for sake of dialogue.

“Being a Kashmiri, Saifuddin is much more aware about Burhan Wani’s matter. There are Wani’s supporters in large number. One cannot solve any matter on gunpoint. Instead of firing on people, the Prime Minister must hold bilateral talks with people of Valley,” INC leader Mani Shankar Aiyar told media.

“If it was in my power, I would have not let Burhan Wani die. I wanted to hold a dialogue with him. I would have made him understand that a bridge of friendship between Pakistan, Kashmir and India can be built and he could also be useful in that. But now he has died. We should understand the pain of Kashmiris,” Saifuddin Soz told media.

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in the Kashmir Valley ahead of Wani’s death anniversary.

Wani was gunned down in an encounter in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir on July 8 last year.

Widespread protests erupted in the Kashmir valley after Wani’s death and curfew was imposed for consecutive 53 days. However, the unrest continued for about five months after Wani’s death in which 78 people, including two police personnel, were killed.

The Kashmir Valley has been on the edge since Saturday when Sabzar Bhat was killed in an alleged gunfight with the security forces in Saimoh village of Pulwama district along with his associate, Faizan Ahmad.

Both belonged to Rathsuna village of Tral tehsil where they were buried in the village martyrs graveyard as hundreds attended their burial.

Authorities had imposed curfew and restrictions on Sunday to prevent violence in the aftermath of Bhat’s death.

Separatists have asked people to observe a protest shutdown on Monday and appealed them to March to Tral town on Tuesday.

Senior separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq have been placed under house arrest while JKLF chief, Muhammad Yasin Malik was arrested and shifted to the central jail on Sunday.

All educational institutions have been shut by the authorities in addition to postponement of exams scheduled on Monday by the university. Train services also remained suspended on Monday for the second consecutive day.

Police said except for six stone pelting incidents on Sunday those were handled with maximum restraint by the security forces, the valley remained peaceful.

High tension and uneasy calm has started affecting the tourist inflow into the Kashmir Valley.

Many hoteliers and others directly associated with the tourism industry are expressing fears of losing their livelihood if things do not return to normal quickly.

Kashmir had a devastating tourist season last year in the aftermath of Burhan Wani’s killing on July 8.

The unrest that followed Wani’s killing lasted nearly six months during which 94 civilians were killed and hundreds other injured.

I recently received an extraordinary email from a troubled young Kashmiri in Srinagar. Days before the Indian authorities turned off the internet, Saif (not his real name) had watched on YouTube the 45-minute video documentary Crossing the Lines — Kashmir, Pakistan, India that I had helped make in 2004 and mostly agreed with its non-partisan narrative. A nationalist boy turned stone thrower, Saif is outraged by the brutality of Indian occupation. He is fortunate, he says. His 14-year-old second cousin lost his left eye to pellets.

Saif continues to fight India but is worried. Protesters of his father’s generation were largely nationalist, but today’s are a mixed bunch. IS and Pakistani flags are often unfurled after Friday prayers, azadi demonstrations resound with calls for an Islamic state in Kashmir, and Nasim Hijazi’s cartoon history of Muslim rule in India Aur Talwar Toot Gayee is serialised by local Urdu papers. Significantly, Burhan Wani was laid in the grave by a crowd of thousands, wrapped in a Pakistani flag, and celebrated as a martyr rather than Kashmiri freedom fighter.

Why this change? The present government — Narendra Modi’s — surely stands guilty. By reducing space for democratic discourse, it promotes radicalisation. Unlike Vajpayee’s accommodative politics, India offers little beyond the iron fist and draconian laws such as AFSPA. The BJP-PDP alliance — shaky to start with — is almost over as each blames the other for the two per cent voter turnout in last month’s by-elections. Hindutva’s religiosity is displacing Nehru’s secularism all across India, and Indian democracy is yielding to Hindu majoritarian rule.

Kashmiri nationalists must realise the grave dangers of giving more space to religious extremists.

But blaming Modi is half an explanation, perhaps even less. In Palestine, after decades of struggle against Israeli occupation, the secular PLO lost out to the religious radicalism of Hamas. In Arab countries, young Muslims dream of fighting infidels and dying as martyrs. In Pakistan, the celebrated army operations Raddul Fasaad and Zarb-i-Azb target armed militants fighting for a Sharia state. Last week, the Higher Education Commission showed its concern by convening a meeting of 60 university vice chancellors in Islamabad on rising extremism in Pakistani campuses.

Extremism has further complicated an already complicated Kashmir situation. What now? For long, Kashmiris, Pakistanis, and Indians have wagged fingers at the other for the 100,000 lives lost over three decades. Where lies the future? Does any solution exist?

A short retreat into mathematics: some equations indeed have solutions even if they need much effort. But other equations can logically be shown to have no solution – nothing will ever work for them. There is still a third type: that where solutions are possible but only under very specific conditions.

Kashmir is not of the first category. Everything has been tried. Delhi and Islamabad have created clients among the Valley’s leaders and political parties, and subversion is a widely used instrument. But they too have turned out to be useless. Elections and inducements have also failed to produce a decisive outcome, as have three Pakistan-India wars. A fourth war would likely be nuclear.

All parties stand guilty. India, under various Congress governments, had once projected itself as a secularist democracy distinct from an Islamic, military-dominated Pakistan. It appeared for that reason to be preferable, but in practice its unconscionable manipulation of Kashmiri politics led to the 1989 popular uprising, sparking an insurgency lasting into the early 2000s. When it ended 90,000 civilians, militants, police, and soldiers had been killed. Remembered by Kashmiri Muslims for his role in the 1990 Gawkadal bridge massacre, Governor Jagmohan received the Padma Vibhushan last year.

Pakistan tried to translate India’s losses into its gains but failed. It soon hijacked the indigenous uprising but the excesses committed by Pakistan-based mujahideen eclipsed those of Indian security forces. The massacres of Kashmiri Pandits, targeting of civilians accused of collaborating with India, destruction of cinema houses and liquor shops, forcing of women into the veil, and revival of Shia-Sunni disputes, severely undermined the legitimacy of the Kashmiri freedom movement.

Pakistan’s ‘bleed India with a thousand cuts’ policy is in a shambles today and jihad is an ugly word in the world’s political lexicon. Say what you will about ‘Dawn Leaks’, but Pakistani diplomats who represent Pakistan’s position in the world’s capitals know the world doesn’t care about Kashmir. How else to explain Prime Minister Modi receiving Saudi Arabia’s highest civilian award from King Salman bin Abdul Aziz?

If Kashmir is ever to have a solution — ie belong to the third type of math problem — then all three contenders will need to rethink their present positions.

Thoughtful Indians must understand that cooling Kashmir lies in India’s hands, not Pakistan’s. By formally acknowledging Kashmir as a problem that needs a political solution, using humane methods of crowd control, and releasing political prisoners from Kashmiri jails, India could move sensibly towards a lessening of internal tensions. Surely, if India considers Kashmiris to be its citizens then it must treat them as such, not as traitors deserving bullets. Else it should hand Kashmir over to Kashmiris — or Pakistan.

Thoughtful Pakistanis must realise that their country’s Kashmir-first policy has brought nothing but misery all around. Using proxies has proven disastrous. A partial realisation has led to detaining of LeT and JeM leaders, but Pakistan’s army must crack down upon all Kashmir-oriented militant groups that still have a presence on Pakistani soil. Such groups are a menace to Pakistan’s society and armed forces, apart from taking legitimacy away from those fighting Indian rule.

Thoughtful Kashmiri nationalists — like Saif — must recognise the grave dangers of giving more space to religious extremists. Their struggle should be for some form of pluralistic entity – whether independent or under nominal Indian or Pakistani control. That entity must assure personal and religious freedoms. An ISIS type state with its cruel practices makes mockery of the very idea of azadi and would pave the way for Kashmir’s descent into hell.

Such rethinking would clear the road to peace through negotiations which, though narrowed, still remains open. Every conflict in history, no matter how bitter, has ultimately been resolved. In Kashmir’s case whether this happens peacefully, or after some apocalypse, cannot be predicted.

Bhuvesh Chaudhary, CRPF spokesman in Srinagar, told leading news website that the paramilitary personnel deployed in Valley are being given additional training on how to tackle and deal with the law and order situation. “The CRPF men are being trained in use of pellet and pava shell guns. They are being trained in the handling of pellet guns, pava shell guns and other non-lethal weapons,” he said. He said now the emphasis is being given on training the personnel and officials in dealing with the law and order situation. “After completing their training, they are being deployed in the Valley to help maintain law and order,” the CRPF spokesman said. Kashmir witnessed major law and order problems last year during over five month long unrest triggered by killing of 21-year Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces in South Kashmir’s Kokernag area on July 8, 2016. During the unrest period, there were daily clashes between stone pelting youth and security personnel in all 10 district of the Valley. According to official sources, 2371 law and order incidents took place in five months of unrest in Valley after Burhan’s killing. “July witnessed 820 law and order incidents followed by 747 in August, 535 in September, 179 in October and 73 in November.” On use of pellet guns, the CRPF spokesman said the paramilitary personnel have to follow the security drill. “It is not that they have to use pellets in every situation. It depends on the situation and the requirements to deal with the trouble,” he said. Chaudhary said if the situation becomes very grave and there is threat to the life of the CRPF personnel and threat to public property, then the CRPF men have no option but to use the pellet guns. The mainstream opposition parties, separatist groups and human rights organizations have been demanding ban on use of pellet guns, which left over a dozen people dead and 8000 other injured. Most of the injured had sustained pellets in eyes and half a dozen people have lost eyesight in both eyes. Asked whether all additional CRPF companies brought to Valley last year to deal with the situation during the unrest have been withdrawn, Chaudhary said all the additional companies have been withdrawn. The withdrawal of additional CRPF companies began in December last year after improvement in the situation in the Valley. The authorities had brought 102 additional companies of CRPF and other paramilitary forces to Kashmir last year to maintain law and order and deal with the stone pelters during the five-month long unrest triggered by killing Burhan Wani.

About us

We are committed to keeping the Islamic world for tomorrow and beyond, and alongside that, we guarantee that important Islamic frameworks are our priority.
We are committed to protecting the Islamic world and, accordingly, we recognize knowledge as an important factor in the ability and consider the media one of the most important means of expanding it.
Accordingly, our fields of activity are the Islamic principles and the interests of the Ummah of Islam. We seek to raise awareness in the international arena and will work hard to achieve it.
It is our duty to be dynamic in the period when foreign aggression against Islamic countries, especially the Islamic Republic, has continued and we are on the path to defending Islamic values.
We believe in the progress and prosperity of the Islamic world for unity, integrity, justice and wisdom, and we hope we can move on to advance and advance it.